Editing Venus in fiction (section)

=== Venusians ===
{{Redirect|Venusians|3=Venusian (disambiguation){{!}}Venusian}}

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In contrast to the diversity of visions of the Venusian environment, the inhabitants of Venus are most commonly portrayed as human, or human-like.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=167}} The catalogue of early (pre-1936) science fiction works compiled by [[E. F. Bleiler|Everett Franklin Bleiler]] and [[Richard Bleiler]] in the [[reference work]]s ''[[Science-Fiction: The Early Years]]'' (1990) and ''[[Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years]]'' (1998) lists examples such as winged, angelic people; [[Telepathy|telepaths]]; [[archaic humans]] ("subhumans"); humans but with wings and antennae; humans with tentacles; furry humans; dwarves; giants; [[Centaur|centaurs]]; fish-men; catpeople; [[Reptilian humanoid|reptilians]]; rat-men; and plant-men.<ref name="BleilerTheEarlyYears" />{{rp|921–922}}<ref name="BleilerTheGernsbackYears" />{{rp|694–695}} Some works which portray Venusians as humans explain this by suggesting that Venus was colonized by an ancient, advanced civilization from Earth, such as [[Atlantis]] in [[Warren E. Sanders]]'s "[[Sheridan Becomes Ambassador]]" (1932) and [[Polish science fiction]] writer [[Władysław Umiński]]'s ''[[Zaziemskie światy]]'' (1948) or [[Ancient Egypt]] in {{Interlanguage link|Jeffery Lloyd Castle|de}}'s ''[[Vanguard to Venus]]'' (1957),<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=169}}<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2024<!-- 22 February --> |title=Umiński, Władysław |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/uminski_wladyslaw |access-date=2024-03-03 |edition=4th |author1-last=Konieczny |author1-first=Piotr |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-first=David |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-link=Graham Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-last=Sleight}}</ref> while the Treens in the ''[[Dan Dare]]'' comics that launched in 1950 are kidnapped humans that have been [[Genetic engineering|genetically engineered]] to survive on Venus.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kirby |first=Geoffrey |title=Wacky and Wonderful Misconceptions About Our Universe |date=2018 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-319-73022-6 |series=Astronomers' Universe |location=Cham, Switzerland |language=en |chapter=Our Three Wacky Inner Planets: Imaginary, Delusionary and Inhabited |pages= 55–78|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-73022-6_3 |oclc=1038067309 |author-link=<!-- No article at present (May 2023); not the same person as [[Geoffrey Kirby]] --> |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GHJdDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA73}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=73}} Comics superhero [[Tommy Tomorrow]] in "Frame-Up at Planeteer Academy" (1962) has a blue-skinned but otherwise humanoid Venusian sidekick called Lon Vurian.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=167}}<ref name="Westfahl2021VenusAndVenusians" />{{Rp|page=673}} The Bleilers also list a number of more bizarre portrayals of Venusians, such as squid-like; four-legged elephantine beings; intelligent giant bees, beetles, ants and worm larvae; giant monstrous insects; and even "living colors".<ref name="BleilerTheEarlyYears" />{{rp|921–922}}<ref name="BleilerTheGernsbackYears">{{Cite book |last1=Bleiler |first1=Everett Franklin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PbMdeizaCNcC&pg=PA694 |title=Science-fiction: The Gernsback Years : a Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines ... from 1926 Through 1936 |last2=Bleiler |first2=Richard |date=1998 |publisher=Kent State University Press |isbn=978-0-87338-604-3 |language=en |author-link=E. F. Bleiler |author-link2=Richard Bleiler}}</ref>{{rp|694–695}} In Simak's "[[Tools (short story)|Tools]]" (1942), a native Venusian is portrayed as "a blob of disembodied [[radon]] gas captured in a [[lead]] jar".<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref name="VaasZivilisationenAufDerNachbarplanet" /><ref name="Ewald" />{{Rp|page=29}} 

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[[File:The Birth of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879).jpg|alt=Refer to caption|thumb|Associations of the planet Venus with the [[Venus (mythology)|Roman goddess of love]] may have influenced fictional portrayals of Venusians. Seen here is the 1879 painting ''[[The Birth of Venus (Bouguereau)|The Birth of Venus]]'' by [[William-Adolphe Bouguereau]].]]
Perhaps due to an association of the planet Venus with the [[Venus (mythology)|Roman goddess of love whose name it shares]], sentient Venusians have often been portrayed as gentle, ethereal, and beautiful—an image first presented in [[Bernard le Bovyer de Fontenelle]]'s ''[[Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds]]'' (1686).<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref name="sagan19780528" /><ref name="ScienceFactAndScienceFiction" />{{Rp|page=547}} This trope was repeated in [[W. S. Lach-Szyrma|W. Lach-Szyrma]]'s ''[[A Voice from Another World]]'' (1874) and ''[[Letters from the Planets]]'' (1887–1893), about an interplanetary tour of a winged, angel-like Venusian, as well as in [[George Griffith]]'s ''[[A Honeymoon in Space]]'' (1900), where human visitors to Venus encounter flying Venusians communicating through music.<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref name="Westfahl2021VenusAndVenusians">{{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=[[Science Fiction Literature through History: An Encyclopedia]] |date=2021 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-6617-3 |language=en |chapter=Venus and Venusians |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WETPEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA671}}</ref>{{Rp|page=671}}<ref name="ScienceFactAndScienceFiction" />{{Rp|page=547}} The anonymously published ''[[A Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Paul Aermont among the Planets]]'' (1873) depicts one Venusian race like this and another which is primitive and violent.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=170}} Primitive Venusians also appear in [[Donald Horner]]'s ''[[By Aeroplane to the Sun]]'' (1910)<!--Westfahl gives the year as 1919, an apparent error--> and [[Frank Brueckel]]'s ''[[The War Lord of Venus]]'' (1930),<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=168}} while more advanced yet malicious ones are depicted in works such as [[Landell Bartlett]]'s "[[The Vanguard of Venus]]" (1928) and [[Roy Rockwood]]'''s [[By Air Express to Venus; or, Captives of a Strange People]]'' (1929).<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=170}} 

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Venusian civilizations have most commonly been depicted as being comparable to Earth's level of development, slightly less frequently as being more advanced, and only occasionally less advanced.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=167}} [[Utopian fiction|Utopian]] depictions of Venus are commonplace,<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=169}} appearing in [[John Munro (author)|John Munro]]'s ''[[A Trip to Venus]]'' (1897) among others.<ref name="Westfahl2021VenusAndVenusians" />{{Rp|page=671}} In terms of governance, {{Interlanguage link|James William Barlow|fr}}'s ''[[History of a Race of Immortals without a God]]'' (1891) features a [[Socialism|socialist]] Venusian civilization,<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Barlow, James William |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/barlow_james_william |access-date=2023-06-26 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clute |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> [[Homer Eon Flint]]'s "[[The Queen of Life]]" (1919) depicts an [[Anarchism|anarchist]] society on Venus,<ref name="ScienceFactAndScienceFiction" />{{rp|547}} and [[Stanton A. Coblentz]]'s ''[[The Blue Barbarians]]'' (1931) is a satirical depiction of a Venus ruled by [[Plutocracy|plutocrats]].<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref name="BleilerTheGernsbackYears" />{{rp|72–73}} The Bleilers additionally list [[Capitalism|capitalist]], [[Feudalism|feudal]], [[Monarchy|monarchical]], and [[Matriarchy|matriarchal]] Venusian societies, among others.<ref name="BleilerTheGernsbackYears" />{{rp|694–695}} In Polish science fiction writer [[Stanisław Lem]]'s novel ''[[The Astronauts]]'' (1951)—later adapted to film as the Polish–[[East Germany|East German]] coproduction ''[[The Silent Star]]'' (1960) and then dubbed to English and recut as ''[[First Spaceship on Venus]]'' (1962)—an expedition to Venus discovers a barren environment and the ruins of a civilization, deducing that the cause was [[nuclear holocaust]].<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=169}}<ref name="HistoricalDictionaryOfScienceFictionCinemaVenus" />{{Rp|page=448}}<ref name="ESOVenus">{{Cite web |date=2004-02-17 |title=Venus in Science Fiction |url=https://www.eso.org/public/outreach/eduoff/vt-2004/Background/Infol2/EIS-D10.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080214110229/https://www.eso.org/public/outreach/eduoff/vt-2004/Background/Infol2/EIS-D10.html |archive-date=2008-02-14 |access-date=2022-07-26 |website=[[European Southern Observatory]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2023<!-- 8 May --> |title=Schweigende Stern, Der |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/schweigende_stern_der |access-date=2023-06-26 |edition=4th |author1-last=Westfahl |author1-first=Gary |author1-link=Gary Westfahl |author2-last=Stevens |author2-first=Geoffrey |author2-link=<!-- No article at present (June 2023) --> |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> Conversely, in Clarke's "[[History Lesson]]" (1949) Venusians come to Earth and find humanity already extinct from environmental causes.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=169}}<ref name="Westfahl2021VenusAndVenusians" />{{Rp|page=672}}

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The association of Venus with women manifests in different ways in many works.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=169}} The planet is inhabited solely or mostly by women in works like "[[What John Smith Saw in the Moon: A Christmas Story for Parties Who Were Children Twenty Years Ago]]" (1893) by [[Fred Harvey Brown]] and ruled by women in Stone's "[[The Conquest of Gola]]" (1931) among others.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=169}} In [[Comic book|comic books]], several of [[DC Comics]]' [[Wonder Woman]] stories in the 1940s featured the superheroine's female allies from Venus.<ref name="Westfahl2021VenusAndVenusians" />{{Rp|page=673}} The films ''[[Abbott and Costello Go to Mars]]'' (1953) and ''[[Queen of Outer Space]]'' (1958) feature the trope of Venus being populated by beautiful women,<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref name="HistoricalDictionaryOfScienceFictionCinemaVenus">{{Cite book |last=Booker |first=M. Keith |title=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Cinema |date=2020 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-3010-0 |edition=Second |language=en |chapter=Venus |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_C_YDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA448}}</ref>{{Rp|page=448}} and ''[[Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women]]'' (1968), the second of two English-language adaptations of ''Planeta Bur'' (the first being ''[[Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet]]'', 1965), portrays the Venusians as "half-naked sex-appealing blond sirens" with [[supernatural]] or [[psychic]] powers.<ref name="HistoricalDictionaryOfScienceFictionCinemaVenus" />{{Rp|page=448}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fedorov |first=Alexander |author-link=Alexander Victorovich Fedorov |date=2015 |title=The Hermeneutical Analysis of the Soviet Fantasy Genre of the 1950s–1960s and Its American Screen Transformation in Media Studies in a Student Audience |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2625005 |journal=European Researcher |language=en |volume=35 |issue=11–3 |ssrn=2625005}}</ref>{{rp|pages=2042, 2046}}

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A theme of a Venusian visitor to Earth is seen in some works, such as Lach-Szyrma's ''A Voice from Another World'' and [[William Windsor (phrenologist)|William Windsor]]'s ''[[Loma, a Citizen of Venus]]'' (1897).<ref name="SFEVenus" /> The British film ''[[Stranger from Venus]]'' (1954) portrays a visit by a Venusian in a similar manner to the one by a Martian in the US film ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' (1951).<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=170}} Visits like this are typically peaceful and for the enlightenment of humanity.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=170}} Occasionally, Venusians come to Earth intent on conquering it, as in [[Charles L. Graves]] and [[E. V. Lucas]]'s parody of [[H. G. Wells]]'s ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'' (1897) titled ''[[The War of the Wenuses]]'' (1898), [[Ray Cummings]]'s ''[[Tarrano the Conqueror]]'' (1925), and the film ''[[Target Earth (film)|Target Earth]]'' (1954).<ref name="SFEVenus" /><ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />{{Rp|page=169–170}}<ref name="VaasZivilisationenAufDerNachbarplanet" /><ref name="BleilerTheEarlyYears" />{{rp|174}} [[Marvel Comic]]'s [[Sub-Mariner]] defended Earth from an invasion by amphibious Venusians in a story arc from the [[Golden Age of Comic Books]].<ref name="Westfahl2021VenusAndVenusians" />{{Rp|page=673}} Venusians infiltrating Earth by posing as humans appear in several works including [[Eric Frank Russell]]'s ''[[Three to Conquer]]'' (1956) and Windsor's ''Loma, a Citizen of Venus''.<ref name="CloudedJudgments" />{{Rp|page=5}}<ref name="MoskowitzToMarsAndVenusInTheGayNineties">{{Cite magazine |last=Moskowitz |first=Sam |author-link=Sam Moskowitz |date=February 1960 |editor-last=Santesson |editor-first=Hans Stefan |editor-link=Hans Stefan Santesson |title=To Mars And Venus in the Gay Nineties |url=https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_Universe_v12n04_1960-02/page/n45/mode/2up |magazine=[[Fantastic Universe]] |volume=12 |issue=4 |id=[https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?18631 ISFDB series #18631]}}</ref>{{Rp|page=51}}